Setting Creation and Modification

Open Questions

A storygame setting can be anything you wish, based on reality or fiction, your own or someone else’s. A fun way of generating the details of the setting can be to play a game of Open Questions before each session of the storygame (or before each act if you are using the Three-Act Story approach). Prior to playing Open Questions, you will want to discuss what kind of setting you want to play (genre, e.g. fantasy, science fiction, adventure, historical, and tone, e.g. comedic, gritty, pulp, cinematic).

Open Questions is played by going round the players in a circle. One is chosen to be the initial holder of a six-sided die, and speaks first, stating a fact about the setting. The die is then rolled. If possible, obtain (or make from a blank cube) an “interrogative die”, which has the words Who, What, When, Where, How and Why on the six faces; otherwise, use an ordinary six-sided die and convert the numbers into the words in the order just given. (See chart on next page.)

The player who has just stated a fact must ask an open question (one requiring at least a sentence answer), beginning with the word indicated by the die roll, and the next player must answer it. This is the second player’s statement of fact, and the die is then rolled again (still by the person who held it at first). The second player asks a question of the third player in the same manner, and so on round.

When the turn comes back to the player holding the die, after answering the previous player’s question he or she may either declare “more” (indicating another round on the same topic), “change” (indicating a new topic should be begun), or “enough” (indicating an end to the game). In either of the first two cases, he or she then hands the die to the person on his or her left, who begins the next round with a statement, rolls the die, and asks a question of the next player.

If the die holder declares “enough”, the rest of the group must agree, otherwise it is treated as a call of “change”.

Someone should record the facts stated about the setting as they are stated.

An alternative way of playing is for the die holder to state a fact and the other players, in rotation, to ask questions of the die roller as guided by the dice. This is a good way of generating ideas for the characters you will play, after you have established other significant facts about the setting such as locations, organizations, politics and culture. From this general background will emerge the kinds of characters who will turn up. This gives each player a basis to create one or more specific major characters, some of which will be played by the players more or less throughout, while others will come “onstage” relatively briefly.

Further characters may emerge in the subsequent games of Open Questions.

Depending on your specific game system, additional facts about the setting (and additional characters) can be established during play by simply introducing them into the narrative, providing the group does not veto them.

If you have difficulty thinking of topics or questions, here are some suggestions. (You can roll the die to get a prompt for the type of topic as well as for the questions, if you need to.)

See also: http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-is-setting-part-3.html(approve sites)

Q	Topic	Q	Setting Questions
Who	People and positions	Who	Who has the money? Who has the appearance of power? Who has the real power? Who is famous? Who is infamous?
		What	What issues face these people? What do they desire? What do they fear?
		When	When did these people come to prominence?
		Where	Where are they from?
		How	How did they attain power?
		Why	Why do they want to hold on to their positions?
What	Culture, arts, literature, technology and religion	Who	Who is famous? Who is infamous?
		What	What is sought after? What is fashionable? What is disapproved of? What is not spoken about?
		When	When did things change last?
		Where	Where are cultural influences coming from? Going to?
		How	How does one become important?
		Why	Why do people come here or leave?
When	History	Who	Who is famous? Who is infamous?
		What	What events shaped the present?
		When	When did things last change?
		Where	Where have innovations traditionally come from?
		How	How do people become prominent?
		Why	Why did the key events which shaped the present occur?
Where	Geography	Who	Who are the neighbours? Who are the natives? Who are the settlers?
		What	What natural features protect or fail to protect this locality?
		When	When was this area settled?
		Where	Where did the people who live here come from? Where do people who leave here go?
		How	How do you get around this place?
		Why	Why is there a city/country here?
How	Organizations, movements and institutions	Who	Who are the leaders? Who are the real leaders? Who is famous? Who is infamous?
		What	What do they say they stand for? What do they actually stand for?
		When	When were they founded? When did they last change?
		Where	Where are they headquartered?
		How	How does one become influential?
		Why	Why do they exist?
Why	Politics, rivalries, faction fights, clashing interests.	Who	Who hates whom? Who is allied with whom?
		What	What are the major issues? What are the hidden issues?
		When	When did the situation last change?
		Where	Where is the situation moving?
		How	How did it come to this?
		Why	Why do these people care so much?